World Models

After the concepts were done I had to get started on the models. My first priority; my first on the list, was the world. My first attempt at modelling it was tedious, I just extruded as much as I needed to over the image plane, keeping fairly low poly, and after Alec requested that I might do a more detailed model of the United Kingdom, he suggested using Adobe Illustrator to do it. So I did, and fairly simply I imported an image of the United Kingdom into maya and had a model almost immediately with the exception of a few tweaks.

After I had the models of the world I started using it as prop so as the presenter could interact with it in the set. Before I tried to deform it into a globe I just curved the world plane slightly so as it gave the illusion of the earth curve while keeping it mostly planar.

Concepts

Scale & Example

After the meeting with the BBC, I wanted to do some small concepts of scale & reference for example. How the presenter can interact with the earth & the props and how big he will be in comparison. I used the render of the stars that Thomas modelled.

More Feedback from the BBC

We had a meeting with our clients, the BBC this week. We had a presentation ready to show & explain our ideas to them, get some feedback, some constructive criticism and continue forward in the right direction. We went through the presentation a slide at a time taking turns explaining our concepts, afterwards we went back through them and discussed them, critiqued them.

They explained some more ideas to us, kind of like projection mapping, the idea I had initially. Projecting streets of the cities that are relevant to the Brexit news stories and having them launch up behind the presenter.

They were happy with our ideas and told us to continue with them. They asked us to do some animations to have examples of what it will look like, its scale, if any of the props are animated etc. They also said to gain a bit of narrative, something more specific to a certain news story, we also discussed the 1 year anniversary and how we could implicate that into our environments, that we could possibly use it the week they are reporting the 1 year story.

Our presentation is below

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BBC_BREXIT Brainstroming

So after the meeting we had 4 or 5 days to have concepts and ideas ready for the group meeting. I had went away to refresh on the Brexit situation but there was no new info to gain:/ I have followed the News story for months and know the current status that Britain and the EU currently reside in. I just needed to start thinking creatively, I had my notes from the meeting and a few Ideas swimming about in my head. Hopefully I can combine them with the groups Ideas on Monday.

EARTH

Alright so in the meeting the director//manager had said

“Maybe they’ll be a story that includes Britain & the EU, Republic and Northern Ireland, we won’t know haha”

So I had immediately thought that we could model an earth that the News Presenter could walk on, he could walk from Republic to England, to the coast of the EU, wherever! We could have flags sticking out of the countries to represent them, even for the younger audience or less informed. He could walk over to the EU, says his lines and take a star off the European flag.

The Council of Europe gives the flag a symbolic description in the following terms; Against the blue sky of the Western world, the stars represent the peoples of Europe in a circle, a symbol of unity. Their number shall be invariably set at twelve, the symbol of completeness and perfection.

When Britain left the EU, they tarnished that symbol of completeness and perfection.

I was conscious of how it would look on the TV, this presenter “walking on the spot” around the rotating earth below his feet, thought it might look a bit strange so I considered the use of a flat plane earth. Perhaps a bit easier and still has the same effect. I was also mindful about the fact that the land on the earth is green and having that projected onto a green screen could be problematic, so I decided that we could just do the land white or pale blue and still obtain the same effect.

Locations

I too thought that by doing a form projection mapping or VFX that we could transport the presenter to whatever location he needs to be in in relation to the News story but IDK, I wasn’t really feeling that idea much and thought that we could definitely do something cooler than that, lets be honest.

Meeting with our client

BBC

So we got put into groups for our new project that includes us working with a client, exciting stuff. The uni kindly “babysits” us while we work with a client just to get us used to the process before we go off on placement next year, before we go off into the industry!

Our Group consists of Myself, Bethany, Megan, Rosie & Thomas. We were paired up with the BBC again! To do a virtual reality project, this is pretty awesome stuff like, I’m quite excited, I have to admit!

MEETING

We had our meeting with them today, Megan Thomas & I had to go down to the BBC NI Studio and meet with them to talk about the VR project. We were given our visitors badges and brought up to an interview room to converse about the project. A studio manager & director both came in to chat with us. The conversation began with a quick slideshow presentation on their VR equipment, and shortly afterwards we were given the brief; Brexit (Britain’s exit from the EU). Basically they told us that they can’t predict the future, they don’t know what News will happen and what follow up information about Brexit that they’ll receive for their next News Piece about it. So essentially we had to take the Concept of Brexit, if we weren’t already updated on the topic we had to brush up and keep on top of the Brexit News. He told us that the News Reporter (Mark Simpson for example) stand on his mark surrounded by green screen and he is immersed in an environment on out TV Screens that someone had created on Cinema 4D // Maya. So we had to immerse him in something that we make to do with Brexit so that they can use our “work” for their next Brexit Piece.

Riiggghhhhtttt Eoin? But… How?

We have to create something that they can use in relation to any possible News Piece. They explained some Ideas that they had, the concept, what we need to to, what we need to do it on, when by, and to have fun with it. After words they showed us the BBC News Studio where the news is done and the Green Screen that will evidently be projecting our project and immersing this news reader in our environment. We got an Idea of what we had to do, where inspired and ready to go do some work. Sooo… yea. Let’s get brainstorming.